Tag Archives: Syrian Refugees

Canada’s Syrian refugee plan draws U.S. Senate panel scrutiny

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada is proceeding with plans to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees, but the country’s background-vetting program is under scrutiny by a U.S. congressional panel, with a hearing set for Wednesday, amid lawmaker concerns about U.S. security.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has questions about the Ottawa government’s intake of refugees by the end of February and the possibility that violent militants could mix in and cross the long, largely porous U.S.-Canada border.

At the public hearing, senators will question U.S. and Canadian experts and a U.S. Border Patrol officer on Canada’s “fast track” resettlement program. Canada’s government turned down an invitation to send a spokesperson to the session.

“We have been in frequent touch with members of the U.S. administration who are satisfied with what we are doing … if the U.S. Senate wants to engage in these activities, that is their right, of course,” John McCallum, Canada’s immigration minister, told reporters on Tuesday.

Initial inquiries show Canada’s background checks on refugees are less rigorous than the 18- to 24-month vettings done by U.S. authorities before letting any Syrian refugee set foot on American soil, congressional aides said.

Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already delayed his government’s program. It had targeted resettlement of the 25,000 by the end of 2015. Now the target is February.

Still, congressional aides said, U.S. officials remain wary of Canada’s screening, noting it is nearly impossible for foreign governments to verify the backgrounds, and identities of refugees, given Syria’s dysfunctional government.

One way Canada is trying to allay concerns about infiltration of the refugee flow by violent militants is by limiting refugees it admits to women, children and lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender individuals.

Canada can vet would-be refugees in U.S. and Canadian law enforcement and intelligence databases, but congressional aides said these databases may omit critical and derogatory information on would-be immigrants’ previous lives in Syria.

Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told reporters on Tuesday that Canada had been “very strong in putting together the security system” used to vet the refugees, and had made a strong effort to keep U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and President Barack Obama fully informed.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Andrew Hay)

Jordan needs international help over refugee crisis, king says

LONDON (Reuters) – Jordan’s King Abdullah says his country needs long-term aid from the international community to cope with a huge influx of Syrian refugees, warning that unless it received support the “dam is going to burst”.

In an interview with the BBC aired on Tuesday, King Abdullah said the refugee crisis was overloading Jordan’s social services and threatening regional stability. Jordan has already accepted more than 600,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees.

“Jordanians are suffering from trying to find jobs, the pressure on infrastructure and for the government, it has hurt us when it comes to the educational system, our healthcare. Sooner or later I think the dam is going to burst,” he said.

Last Thursday, officials said the European Union would promise some $2.2 billion at an international donor conference to be held in London this week to aid Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said last month he would press the EU to relax export rules for Jordan, to help spur economic growth.

“This week is going to be very important for Jordanians to see is there going to be help not only for Syrian refugees but for their own future as well,” King Abdullah told the BBC.

Part of the U.S.-led coalition that is bombing Syria, Jordan has long been praised for helping refugees and been a big beneficiary of foreign aid as a result.

However, it has drawn criticism from western allies and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees over the situation near its border with Syria, where thousands of refugees are being kept far from any aid.

The situation has deteriorated since Russia started air strikes last September to support President Bashar al-Assad.

King Abdullah said if Jordan was not helped, the refugee crisis would worsen.

“The international community, we’ve always stood shoulder to shoulder by your side. We’re now asking for your help, you can’t say no this time,” he said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Katharine Houreld)

U.N. seeks Syrian peace talks this week, opposition threatens boycott

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Monday it would issue invitations for marathon Syrian peace talks to begin this week, but opposition groups signaled they would stay away unless the government and its Russian allies halt air strikes and lift sieges on towns.

The first talks in two years to end the Syrian civil war were meant to begin on Monday but have been held up in part by a dispute over who should represent the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was still working on his list, and expected to issue the invitations on Tuesday for talks to start on Friday.

The aim would be six months of talks, first seeking a ceasefire, later working toward a political settlement to a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, driven more than 10 million from their homes and drawn in global powers.

The ceasefire would cover the whole country except parts held by Islamic State militants and al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, de Mistura told a news conference in Geneva.

De Mistura, whose two predecessors quit in apparent frustration after holding failed peace conferences of their own, acknowledged the going would be difficult. Delegations would meet in separate rooms in “proximity talks”, with diplomats shuttling between them. Threats to pull out should be expected.

“Don’t be surprised: there will be a lot of posturing, a lot of walk-outs or walk-ins because a bomb has fallen or someone has done an attack…. You should neither be depressed nor impressed, but it’s likely to happen,” he said. “The important thing is to keep momentum.”

The spokesman for one of the rebel groups in the opposition High Negotiating Committee (HNC) said it was impossible for the opposition to attend as long as rebel territory is being pounded by air strikes and besieged towns are being starved.

“It is impossible to give up any of our demands. If we attend, it’s as if we are selling our martyrs,” said Abu Ghiath al-Shami, spokesman for Alwiyat Seif al-Sham, one of the groups fighting against Assad’s forces in the southwest.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he expected clarity within a day or two over who would attend, and expressed support for de Mistura’s decision to take time to draw up the list.

“We don’t want to decide and have it crumble on day one. It’s worth taking a day or two, or three, or whatever,” Kerry said during a visit to Laos.

The outcome was up to the Syrian parties, he added: “They have to be serious. If they are not serious, war will continue. Up to them. You can lead a horse to water; you can’t make it drink.”

RUSSIAN INTERVENTION

Years of high-level diplomacy have so far yielded no progress toward ending or even curbing the fighting. Since the last peace conference was held in early 2014, Islamic State fighters have declared a caliphate across much of Syria and Iraq, and the war has drawn in world powers.

The United States has led air strikes against the militants since 2014, and Russia launched a separate air campaign nearly four months ago against enemies of its ally Assad.

Russian firepower has helped the Syrian military and its allies achieve military gains, including a major push in the northwest of the country in recent days, with rebels acknowledging a turn in momentum.

The rise of Islamic State and Russia’s entry into the war have given new impetus to diplomacy, leading to a Dec. 18 U.N. Security Council resolution, backed by Washington and Moscow, that called for peace talks.

But world powers remain at odds over who should be invited. Russia says opposition figures it calls terrorists must be excluded, and wants to include groups like the Kurds who control wide areas of northern Syria. Regional heavyweight Turkey opposes inviting the Kurds.

The main Sunni Arab opposition groups, who are supported by Arab governments and the West, say they will not attend unless they can choose their own delegation. Spokesman Salim al-Muslat said the opposition HNC would discuss its position on Tuesday.

The HNC, formed in Saudi Arabia last month and grouping armed and political opponents of Assad, has repeatedly said talks cannot begin until air strikes are halted, government sieges of rebel-held territory lifted and detainees freed, steps outlined in the U.N. resolution.

“Unfortunately, it is not possible to sit and talk to anyone without the suffering being lifted first,” Muslat said on Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath.

SUICIDE BOMBING

The peace conference, if it takes place, will be the third since the war began and the first convened by de Mistura, a veteran diplomat with dual Swedish and Italian nationality.

All previous diplomatic efforts foundered over the future role of Assad, with the opposition refusing to back off its demand that he leave power and the president refusing to go.

A suicide bomber driving a fuel tank truck blew himself up at a checkpoint run by the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham in the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, killing at least 23 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Rebel forces lost the town of Rabiya in Latakia province over the weekend, their second major setback near the Turkish border in northwestern Syria in recent weeks as the government and Russia seek to cut rebel supply lines to Turkey.

“It’s a major pullback for us, but it is not over. We have 17 martyrs and 30 wounded. And none of the injuries are from bullets: it is all due to shrapnel from missiles, proof of how we are struggling to fend off Russian air strikes,” Firas Pasa, a leader of an ethnic Turkmen rebel group told Reuters in Gaziantep, Turkey, near the border.

“If the West wants us to defeat Syrian government forces then we urgently need anti-aircraft capabilities,” he said.

A member of Ahrar al-Sham, Abu Baraa al-Lathkani, said the rebels had abandoned the strategy of trying to hold territory and were shifting to guerrilla tactics.

The Syrian military, its morale running high, is planning the next phase of its offensive in northern Syria. The coming target is Idlib, a rebel stronghold, said a military source.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut, Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, David Brunnstrom in Vientiane, Humeyra Pamuk in Turkey and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Senate blocks bill for tighter Syrian refugee screening

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats narrowly blocked legislation on Wednesday that would slow the entry of refugees from Syria and Iraq into the United States in a contentious vote cloaked in presidential election-year politics.

The vote was 55-43, with “yes” votes falling short of the 60 needed to advance the Republican-backed measure in the 100-member Senate. No Republicans voted against the bill, and only two Democrats backed it.

Among other things, the bill would have required high-level U.S. officials to verify that each refugee from Iraq and Syria posed no security risk before being allowed into the United States.

Republicans said the tighter screening was essential to ensure the safety of Americans and prevent attacks within the country by Islamic State and other militant groups.

Democrats called the legislation an attack on people who are fleeing war. They accused Republicans of holding the vote to allow their 2016 presidential candidates in the Senate to back legislation touted as tough on security.

All three of the Senate Republican 2016 presidential hopefuls, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, backed the bill.

Democrats had also sought to play politics. They tried and failed to reach a deal with Republicans that would have set up a vote on an amendment establishing a religious test for would-be immigrants.

That vote was planned to see if Republicans would side against 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has advocated barring Muslims from entering the United States.

The Syria refugee bill passed the House by a large, bipartisan margin in November days after the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks in Paris, supported by dozens of Democrats who broke from their party despite Democratic President Barack Obama’s threatened veto.

“We need to talk about efforts to defeat ISIS, not creating more paperwork for cabinet secretaries,” Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, told reporters before the vote.

It currently takes 18-24 months for Syrian refugees to be screened before they can move to the United States.

The United States has offered refuge to far fewer of the millions fleeing war in Syria and Iraq than many of its closest allies in Europe and the Middle East.

Obama announced last year that he would admit 10,000 Syrians, a plan opposed by many Republicans as a potential threat to U.S. security.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Eric Beech and Cynthia Osterman)

Children on Syrian refugee route could freeze to death, U.N. says

GENEVA (Reuters) – Thousands of refugee children traveling along the migration route through Turkey and southeastern Europe are at risk from a sustained spell of freezing weather in the next two weeks, the United Nations and aid agencies said on Tuesday.

The U.N. weather agency said it forecast below-normal temperatures and heavy snowfall in the next two weeks in the eastern Balkan peninsula, Turkey, the eastern Mediterranean and Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

“Many children on the move do not have adequate clothing or access to the right nutrition,” said Christophe Boulierac, spokesman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

Asked if children could freeze to death, he told a news briefing: “The risk is clearly very, very high.”

Children were coming ashore on the Greek island of Lesbos wearing only T-shirts and soaking wet after traveling on unseaworthy rubber dinghies, the charity Save the Children said in a statement.

“Aid workers at the border reception center in Presevo say there is six inches of snow on the ground and children are arriving with blue lips, distressed and shaking from the cold,” it said.

It said temperatures were forecast to drop to -4 degrees Fahrenheit in Presevo in Serbia and 9 degrees Fahrenheit on the Greek border with Macedonia.

Last year children accounted for a quarter of the one million migrants and refugees arriving across the Mediterranean in Europe, Boulierac said. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said a daily average of 1,708 people had arrived in Greece so far in January, just under half the December daily average of 3,508.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Dominic Evans)

Canada prepares to welcome 10,000th Syrian refugee, few problems so far

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada prepared on Tuesday to welcome its 10,000th Syrian refugee since November, and resettlement workers said the heavy influx has gone smoothly despite a shortage of housing in Toronto and a pepper-spray incident in Vancouver.

“We had a tough time bringing in this flow of 10,000, but we are getting used to it,” said Ahmad Hematya, executive director of the Afghan Association of Ontario, which has sponsored more than 200 newcomers in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, elected in October on a promise to accept more refugees more quickly than the previous Conservative government, had promised to bring in 25,000 Syrians by the end of December but pushed back that timeline to March because of concerns about security screening and logistics.

According to the government’s immigration website, 9,593 Syrian refugees had arrived in Canada between Nov. 4, when Trudeau was sworn into office, and Jan. 11.

The mostly smooth arrival of the refugees was marred on Friday when a man riding a bicycle unleashed pepper spray on a group of refugees after a welcome event in Vancouver, according to Vancouver police.

Trudeau was quick to condemn the attack, Tweeting that it “doesn’t reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered,” and resettlement workers shrugged off the incident as not even worth mentioning, given an outpouring of public support.

Apkar Mirakian, chair of the committee helping to sponsor refugees through the Armenian Community Centre of Toronto, said the biggest challenge has been finding enough housing.

He said about 40 families are living at a city hotel temporarily but that sponsors and resettlement workers can usually find permanent housing within two weeks.

“The main objective is to get all these people to work, and then there are the children who want to go to school now that the holidays are over,” said Mirakian, whose group has overseen the arrival of 700 newcomers in four weeks.

While landing in Toronto and Montreal, refugees are also settling across the country.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, the province’s largest refugee resettlement agency has all its beds filled. Welcome Place, run by Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, currently houses about 120 people, mostly Syrian refugees. The council is now filling temporary refugee housing in an apartment block and dormitory. Refugees stay for about two weeks before moving into more permanent housing.

(Reporting by Andrea Hopkins in Toronto and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Syrian refugees face another winter in flimsy shelters

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (Reuters) – Syrian refugee Hussein Hammoud is banking on a broom handle to protect his 12 children from the winter cold. He is using one to prop up the flimsy shelter that has already collapsed once this year under the weight of snow in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“The snow brought down the tent on our heads, it broke the wooden frame,” said the 37-year-old from southern Aleppo, a refugee from the war that has been raging in neighboring Syria for nearly five years. “The assistance reaching us is very little in winter – no blankets, no mattresses.”

More than 1 million Syrians are enduring another winter as refugees in Lebanon. For some, it is their fifth in a row, displaced by a war that has driven 4.4 million Syrians into neighboring states from where many are trying to reach Europe.

While the first snow has melted at Hammoud’s camp in Bar elias, rainfall permeates the plastic sheets that fail to fully shield those underneath from the elements. Some bear the emblems of U.N. aid agencies. Others are advertising hoardings.

The snow-capped mountains of nearby Mount Lebanon are visible from the camp comprising around 30 tents separated by a dirt pathway that turns to mud in winter. It is one of more than 3,000 such settlements scattered across Lebanon.

“We have no fuel. Nobody is giving us fuel, and the water in the tent is this much,” said a woman in a purple scarf who gave her name as Umm Khalaf, holding her hands apart to show how badly it had flooded.

The winter brings other problems, too. Refugees in remote areas stranded by snow cannot reach shops to buy food and water.

“Clean water freezes in the tanks, sanitation becomes an issue, and diseases can spread more easily,” said Fran Beyrtison, Lebanon representative of aid agency Oxfam.

“Lebanon and the UN recently issued an appeal to help up to 2.9 million vulnerable people. The international community needs to fund this appeal urgently to allow aid to reach people in need,” she said. The appeal, for $2.5 billion, includes vulnerable Lebanese in addition to Syrian refugees.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, has provided support including stoves, blankets, mattresses and “insulation kits” that include insulating foam and timber, though these are designed for refugees living in larger buildings, said Dana Sleiman, UNHCR spokeswoman in Lebanon.

“We did our best to make sure that refugees are able to stay as warm and dry as possible this winter and avoid some of the issues we saw last year, like flooding,” she said.

For Umm Khalaf and others at Bar elias, another problem is explaining the situation to their children.

“The children cry and ask ‘Why is this happening’? We reply ‘God will take care of it’. What can we do?” she said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Alabama suing federal government over refugee resettlement plans

Alabama is taking the federal government to court over the Obama administration’s plans to resettle refugees in America, claiming the White House hasn’t told the state enough about the process and that lack of dialogue and information constitutes a violation of federal law.

Governor Robert Bentley announced the lawsuit in a news release on Thursday, arguing the government wasn’t following the rules laid out in the Refugee Act of 1980.

Alabama is arguing the state was “denied a meaningful role and input into the process” of the government resettling refugees in the state, despite the act requiring the government to consult states before it places any refugees in their communities, according to the governor’s statement.

Bentley was one of several governors who have publicly announced their states will not accept any Syrian refugees. He originally made the announcement in November, just two days after the Paris attacks, and specifically mentioned those attacks when initially making his announcement.

The governor’s office said Thursday the lawsuit covers all refugees that the government wants to place in the state, including those from places other than Syria. The lawsuit references concerns about terrorism.

“Regarding security, Alabama shares the concerns of the intelligence community – including those of the Nation’s highest ranking intelligence officials – that sufficient information is lacking to ensure that certain refugees – including those from Syria – have neither provided material support to terrorists nor are terrorists themselves,” the lawsuit reads.

In announcing the lawsuit, Bentley said he has sent the White House three letters about the program and its potential impacts on Alabama, but “these letters have gone unanswered.”

“As Governor, the Alabama Constitution gives me the sovereign authority and solemn duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of all citizens of Alabama,” Bentley continued in his statement. “The process and manner in which the Obama Administration and the federal government are executing the Refugee Reception Program is blatantly excluding the states.”

Alabama is arguing that because it doesn’t have any information about the refugees, the state can’t prepare for their arrival and their potential impact on public safety and social programs.

Defendants in the lawsuit include the United States, the State Department, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as well as some leaders in those departments, court filings show.

The governor’s office said the lawsuit is asking for the government to admit it didn’t adequately consult Alabama, medical histories and complete files of every refugee and certification that none of the refugees represent a security risk. The lawsuit is also asking the government to declare it can’t place any refugees in Alabama until it first addresses those other responsibilities.

Number of European Migrants, Refugees Now Officially Tops 1 Million

More than 1 million migrants and refugees traveled to Europe in 2015, according to data released Tuesday by the International Office of Migration (IOM).

The office placed the approximate total of refugee and migrant arrivals in Europe at 1,005,504 through Monday. The office said it was the highest flow of displaced people since World War II.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants and refugees arrived by sea, according to the IOM. Approximately 97 percent (971,289) traveled that way, while only 34,215 journeyed by land.
Most of the new arrivals were from South Asia, Africa and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has forced millions of people to flee their homes and travel to other countries in search of new lives.

The data was announced days after a United Nations Refugee Agency report indicated the number of displaced people around the globe likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a record total. That U.N. report covers refugees, asylum seekers and so-called internally displaced people, or those who have been forced to flee their homes but were still currently living in their countries.

The surge in migrant and refugee arrivals has become a contested political issue in Europe, with widespread debate about policies and security. In a joint statement with the IOM, the United Nations Refugee Agency described Europe’s initial reaction to the arrivals as “chaotic,” with thousands of refugees traveling through Greece only to be unable to cross certain borders, but noted “a more coordinated European response is beginning to take shape.”

Still, there remain some concerns about the arrival of refugees — particularly from Syria, the most common place of origin for refugees — as one of the men behind the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris had a forged Syrian passport, fueling concerns that he was posing as a refugee.

“As anti-foreigner sentiments escalate in some quarters, it is important to recognize the positive contributions that refugees and migrants make to the societies in which they live and also honor core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The United Nations reported that 50 percent of the refugees arriving in Europe were traveling from Syria. Another 20 percent were from Afghanistan and another 7 percent came from Iraq.

The IOM reported 3,692 refugees were killed on their journeys, about 400 more than 2014. The IOM’s director general, William Lacy Swing, called for improvements to the migration process.

“Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all – both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new homes,” Swing said in a statement.

Flight of 163 Syrian Refugees Arrives in Canada

A plane carrying 163 Syrian refugees arrived in Canada this week, Canada’s government said.

A Royal Canadian Air Force plane brought them to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday night. It was the first flight of privately sponsored Syrian refugees to arrive in Canada.

Canada’s newly elected Liberal government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has announced it plans to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in the country by the end of February. The government wants 10,000 of those refugees to arrive in Canada before the new year.

Trudeau originally wanted to bring in all 25,000 refugees by the end of 2015, but adjusted the timeline in November. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported at the time that host communities needed more time to prepare for the refugees, but some politicians had asked for more time for security vetting.

Canada’s resettlement plan says that security checks on refugees will be conducted overseas, before the Syrians even board airplanes. Canada is working with the United Nations Refugee Agency and government of Turkey to select refugees who are not seen as potential security risks and are particularly vulnerable, like members of the LGBT community and complete families.

The government says 687 total Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada since November.

Trudeau personally greeted the refugees who landed at the airport on Thursday.

“I know that, even for those facing extreme hardship, tragedy, and war in their country, leaving home is very difficult. The transition to a new life in a new country can be a very daunting process,” the prime minister said in a statement. “Let me reassure those coming to our country that our communities and all orders of government will work closely, together, to make it easier for you to adjust to these changes and become full participants in Canadian society.”

On Friday, Canadian National Railway announced it would donate $5 million to help various communities welcome Syrian refugees. Canada’s government has announced it will spend as much as $678 million over the next six years to fund its Syrian refugee resettlement program.